#i am nonbinary. i am queer. i know this about myself. no laws will ever change that. no bigots will ever take my sense of SELF away.

[givemearmstopraywith]

as a nonbinary lesbian, i was curious how you navigate your faith whilst being queer - if that's something that's even a thing for you.

(thank you for the additional message about this!! i do identify as a nonbinary lesbian but the lesbian aspect is still something im learning about for myself x)

it's a huge thing! my queerness and my faith are completely interrelated and i dont think one would exist without the other- they are mutually enhanced by each other, but admittedly its very difficult in spaces where frequently the community of faith rejects or undermines my queerness, and honestly? the queer community frequently also rejects and undermines my faith. its weird! but i also know that the profundity of my identity mirrors the profundity of God's own- as much as people struggle to understand the depths of who God is and how he loves, i feel like queer people experience the same thing- the struggle of the hegemony to understand how they love and who they are. we refer to God as a he and we call jesus his son, but lesser known is the fact that shekinah, the spirit which is said to have covered mary at the immaculate conception, the force with allowed her body to carry a god, is written of in the original hebrew using feminine pronouns. which is such a small way of acknowledging how synonymous queer identity- particularly nonbinary or trans identity- is with the idea of God's identity.

in terms of navigating homophobia in the church and in faith, i think a lot of it is born out of ignorance and a long history of misinterpretation of the bible. many rabbis teach that the sins of sodom were not homosexuality, but economic injustice: the sexual element to the sin told in genesis was that the men of sodom wanted to have sex with angels, a grave sin rooted in ancient jewish mysticism. it was never about men having sex with men: it was about men having sex with angels, which is incidentally also the impetus in the jewish flood narrative for the destruction of humanity. and jonathan and david- i love, so deeply, how 1 samuel talks about their relationship, that jonathan loved david as his own soul, his own nephesh, a word that has no direct translation in english but in hebrew encompasses means life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion. psyche, sentience, breath. it is that which passed from God into man and made him alive. its a deep profundity of love, and it is between two people of the same gender, and to say that homosexual love exists in scripture in some capacity does not at all seem at odds with a god who is written in in a multitude of gender expressions. so that's the biblical foundation for navigating my faith and my identity: there is nothing in scripture at odds with me. and i'm sure there will be a christian who comes trotting into my inbox citing leviticus 18. leviticus 18 should be of no concern to christians. it is jewish law. you are not jewish: you are christian.

in terms of the church, i will not lie! i went for a job interview to be a children's minister and was passed over for the job because the church did not support inclusion. i am often scared of being blackballed because of my identity. i am privileged in that i pass as cis: trans is not a term i would ever apply to myself. and i've chosen to be single so i can focus on school, so my sexuality doesn't come up often. but i'm out to my school chaplain, and she's been incredibly supportive and encouraging. i am also fortunate that i live in a very liberal city and attend an anglican school, so i have never encountered direct homophobia or transphobia in terms of my schooling. in fact ive felt supported and loved by my peers- even in places that i think people don't expect to see it, like classes where there's three women, me, and twenty priests-in-training. and i am lucky and, i think, unusually lucky. i spent time as a child in spaces that were intensely homophobic- people who, when i expressed my joy at the legalization of gay marriage in the us, were horrified and said i would go to hell for my support. and as a young lesbian, as someone who knew i was different from my peers but couldn't quite figure out what, it was an awful experience that set my development back exponentially. i'm not going to say that the church as a monolith is a safe place for queer people. it's not. but God is profound love: God loves us. and there are many, growing places- as there have always been- in the church where queerness is not at odds with the practice of faith. so i carry my identity close to me, i don't advertise it, but i know that where humanity does not have the capacity to love me for who i am, God's profound love is capable of far more than i could ever imagine. and that comforts me a lot.

[whentherewerebicycles]

wow okay i am skipping the lingerie party lol and am instead going to just briefly jot down some thoughts before i go to sleep and wake up at 5 for my flight tomorrow morning. jesus christ i have ONE MILLION thoughts and feelings about this weekend. i want to preface this by saying that on the whole, it was a fine social experience! it was nowhere near as awkward or painful as i was expecting. or like, parts of it were painful, but it was 100% to do with my own complicated feelings about literally every part of this tradition and the wedding industry in general lol, and not anything to do with the people themselves. the other women were friendly and very welcoming, i made an event best friend who was wonderful company, and it was really fun to get to spend time with both my sister-in-law and her older sister, who was so charming and wonderful. i’m glad i came even though thinking about the $$ i spent on this trip makes me physically gag.

but okay i want to just record some THOUGHTS that maybe i will continue unpacking with some distance. i feel likeeeee okay here are my thoughts.

the social norms around femininity are just a fucking minefield and i feel like i really just gotta keep walking back the impulse to judge other women for the choices they make as they navigate around the manifold traps and snares and half-buried landmines that constitute the landscape of being a woman. like jesus christ. it’s so fucked up, it’s so fucked up, the received and socially enforced norms of femininity are just so fucked up. I think ALL THE FUCKING TIME of this margaret atwood poem i love so much, which was REALLY on my mind this weekend:

How can I teach her some way of being human that won’t destroy her?

I would like to tell her, Love is enough, I would like to say, Find shelter in another skin.

I would like to say, Dance and be happy. Instead I will say in my crone’s voice, Be ruthless when you have to, tell the truth when you can, when you can see it.

I feel like the first bit was very much on my mind throughout the weekend, but those last three lines have come to the forefront over the course of this last day, as i have tried to do some Thinking about what i observed/experienced/felt this weekend. whether or not this is what it means in the context of the poem, tell the truth when you can, when you can see it, expresses something of my complex feelings: I don’t know that I can tell the truth about femininity because I don’t know that I can see it. i am both too close to it/still emotionally entangled in it and too far from it to know which parts of it are ‘real’ and which parts are just performance.

i feel like one thing that struck me this weekend, in ways that i don’t know if i’ve noticed as much before, was that so much of the things women say to each other or do in these social contexts is performative, and they know on some level it’s a performance, but we are all going through the motions of doing and saying the expected things anyway. that has not always been clear to me. i have spent so much of my own life as a woman thinking that other women perfectly, seamlessly, naturally embodied the norms of femininity, and i was the only one (or part of a group of only ones) who couldn’t remember my lines, or kept fumbling my cues, or felt so painfully, self-consciously aware that i was playing a role that i could never deliver a convincing performance. but this weekend, after the initial social panic had passed, i started trying to get out of my own head a little bit and look for things that disproved the very strong theory i had brought into the weekend. and of course then i started seeing more and more of the little moments where women say one thing and do another, or profess one belief/conviction but then the whole corpus of their lived experiences and choices contradicts that stated belief, or whatever. and also just like, moments of pathos, where someone i had judged harshly at the beginning of the weekend offhandedly revealed something about her past that really changed my perception of her, or at least made me think like, ah god, i have to have empathy for and with this person, because i think she might be a complex person just like me, with an intricate inner life that her performance partially reveals and partially occludes from view, and agh, it sucks to have to think of people as complicated instead of as safely two-dimensional & easy to dismiss, and the reason it sucks is because then it forces you to realize that you share more with this person than you’d like to admit, and that some of your wounds are the same, even if you dealt with those wounds (the wounds of girlhood, or rather the emotional wounds that our culture inflicts upon girls, which then become tangled up in complex and painful ways with the lived experience of girlhood itself) in really different ways.

but also ugh. we are all performing gender norms but there is just something that does not feel playful at all about embodying conventional femininity. i can’t think of a better way to phrase that right now but it’s like.. the performance isn’t fun. it doesn’t seem to be fun. i don’t know that anyone here was having fun doing it, even if they were having fun being with each other. but it was like doing the intensely gendered social rituals was like, the price of admission? like it was the toll we had to pay to be together spending time in the company of other women? i don’t know man but it fucking exhausts me. like i can push myself to stretch my genuine empathy and sense of solidarity with other women much further than my knee-jerk judgmental reaction, but i can’t ever get to a place where i find any of those social rituals anything other than fucking exhausting. they feel so fucking joyless. they feel like things that many women have internalized as ‘things we must do in order to have relationships with other women.’ (please do not even get me started on how exhausting heteronormativity is i think i could write an entire other essay on how women use these bachelorette party-type rituals to spend time with their closest female friends, but the whole event is still implicitly organized around men, and these women’s male partners are still positioned as the priority in their lives, and the whole event is framed as like, a last burst of intense closeness between women before the bride is delivered over to her husband. like i KNOW that this is not how women think of it but all the RHETORIC of the bachelorette party, the little events and rituals and games, the little comments everyone makes all fucking weekend, good fucking lord, my jaw is so TENSE.)

anyway god i just AGHHHH. idk sorry this is definitely not coherent at ALL because i’m tired and still need a bit more distance/time to process some of this. i guess here is one last thing i want to register before i sleep. i am in my 30s now and i am living a life that is so, so far removed from the social world i grew up in. marriage is not a norm among my friend group, almost all of my female friends are queer women, many women i know are not partnered and have no interest in being partnered, and the friends who are in heterosexual relationships tend to be in very gender-balanced relationships or slightly nontraditional relationships where it feels like both partners have engaged in conscious reflection about what they want their relationship to look/feel like. also i now date women, am out as a lesbian, and spend most of my time teaching/working with queer- and trans/nonbinary-identified kids.

so like, the world i live in now is just so different from the world i grew up in. and sometimes it is easy for me to kind of downplay the intensity of my own gender distress as a teen and young adult, or to sort of - act like it was a phase in my life that had much more to do with me than with the social environment i lived in. i don’t mean ‘phase’ in a dismissive ‘those feelings weren’t real’ kind way, but more like, ‘oh that was just part of the normal growing pains of figuring out who you are and what kind of person you want to be as an adult - everybody pretty much goes through some version of that.’ it’s true that everyone DOES go through some version of that, as just like, part of the process of individuation in that age range. but also like. idk man. being back in this environment - straight white women from the midwest and south, all engaging in the rituals of heterosexual white femininity - was just so intense and so MUCH, and it brought back a flood of feelings and visceral memories that i feel like i will need to spend some time sorting through over the next few weeks. like, what i experienced back then really WAS gender distress, and it was so, so distressing. i spent the years from age 11ish to 24ish existing with this constant lowgrade baseline feeling of wanting to claw my own fucking skin off because my own gendered body felt like such a prison, and i sometimes felt like i literally wanted to destroy my own body because i could not yet conceive of an alternative to inhabiting that body or playing the role that had been handed down to me. until i started reading queer memoirs and inhaling lesbian media and (especially) reading about queer femme identities, i literally did not have an image or any kind of felt sense of what another way of inhabiting my own body might look/feel like. i literally could not imagine it!!!

and that is why the distress feels so distressing, and becomes internalized in such violent ways, i think. because it’s the blind, mindless panic of a trapped and wounded animal. except that you lack any real understanding of the larger social forces at work, or any language with which to describe or conceptualize what social norms are or how they’re enforced. so in your mind, the only thing you can see wounding you is your own gendered body, or the way that gendered body is socially 'read’ by others. and that is why you want to claw your own fucking skin off, just literally dig your nails into your own flesh and claw it the fuck off. because you can’t see a norm, but you can see your gendered body, and you can see the ways that it causes other people to react to you, or treat you, or hold you to a certain set of expectations, and so in your mind you are like: this must be destroyed. in your mind you are like, the only way out is to get out of this fucking body, but that’s impossible, surely, you can’t get out of your own body, so you have to settle for starving it and self-harming it and ruthlessly punishing it in a thousand terrible ways, because you might not be able to leave your girl’s body behind, but you can make it suffer and pay for what it’s done to you. 

i am old enough now, and have spent enough time thinking and writing about those feelings, to identify them when they arise again, and to get the necessary distance from them so that i can say, what i want to destroy are the norms themselves, and the distress they cause, and not the body that has done nothing to me but be me. so i am not quite as sucked under as i used to be. but i think that there is something about the violence and intensity of those feelings that i forget sometimes, or misremember with age and distance. it’s easy to be a little bit patronizing to my younger self (or by extension to my younger students sometimes), because i now live in a social world that is largely arranged in ways that minimize rather than intensify or amplify gender distress. but when you have no choice in how to arrange your life, and no language with which to understand what is happening to you or what you are experiencing, and no frame of reference to help you understand that this is a period in your life and not forever, and no models you can look to in order to discover alternative ways of inhabiting your body or arranging your life... my god, that’s quite different from being an adult with a wide range of experiences and with much greater autonomy over your own body and life. anyway idk i need to keep thinking but now i must go to bed and try to sleep five hours before the plane.

[conduitandconjurer]

Hi there! I’ve lurked for a little while and just recently followed. You have a really interesting take on Klaus and I’d like to ask: what kind of things do you do to get into character so to speak? Are there any important things about his character you like to keep in mind when you write him? And as someone who has written for many years but is considering rp, any advice for a first-timer? Thanks and hope you have a wonderful day/night!

First of all you should know that I’ve been rping on various platforms for over 15 years at this point, and messages like this still MAKE MY WHOLE WORLD BETTER <33333  Thank you SO much for your gracious and generous kind words.  You took a second to extend a hello and compliment my hard work and it means so so much.

So Klaus and I are NOTHING alike, which is exactly why I choose to write muses like him.  It provides me an outlet of escape from my own life (which has its ups and downs) and it’s a creative and intellectual challenge to understand what makes a person so behaviorally different from myself tick. Most writers like to write characters who are like them.  And I do that too, but for me, I just need some single trait in a character that I resonate with. For Klaus, it’s his innate sweetness and vulnerability (which he tries and fails to conceal) and his need (and failure) to establish boundaries (with family and with ghosts), and finally it’s his fear of being insufficient as a person his family can rely upon (which he copes with by creating artificial emotional distance, and abusing substances, whereas I the mun marinate in guilt and try to overcompensate lmao).  While we’re still not alike, I can BEGIN to understand WHY he behaves the way he does, and I can build my portrayal off of that. 

Put another way, most of my muses are queer nonbinary he/him/they pronoun users, often neurodivergent, who are undergoing a moral struggle, usually somewhere in the antihero category, or even villains. I on the other hand am a queer cis disabled woman with PTSD who is a Lawful Good......and I think that, having a point for relating to but still not being exactly like my muses,  I almost begin to see myself as these characters’ mother or advocate of some kind.  I want to see them GROW and THRIVE.  From that urge, I derive the compassion that every writer needs to have for their character to (try to) portray them authentically.  

And that also means that the character is not going to remain within the bounds of their canonical portrayal. The way I write them will always START and be BASED ON that.  But the character will grow far afield of it.  Take Klaus, for instance. I sense you call my portrayal “interesting” (correct me if I’m wrong) because I choose to write Klaus as almost always post-season 2 AND sober.  He’s more at peace with himself than he was during the first season, he’s begun to properly process his grief for Dave Katz, he’s getting clean and staying clean, he’s becoming more emotionally reliable.  But he still makes mistakes, he still has the most severe, frustrating and painful (for him) case of ADHD I have ever seen, people still don’t “take him seriously” (his own words) and he has to grow a thick skin about their dismissive behavior.  

The fandom, even a number of Klaus rpers, like to keep Klaus in this depressing stasis chamber where he’s constantly nihilistic, selfish, and strung out, and a lot of people see Klaus’s addictions as the brunt of jokes, and while that’s cool for them, and I’d never ask them to censor their portrayal, that makes me uncomfortable. As a person who’s worked with, still works with, at-risk youth at the college level, I just can’t jive with it.  Addiction is an illness and it’s not funny, and there are underlying reasons for Klaus’s addictions.  And what I want to do is excavate those underlying reasons, and watch him get the support he needs. He is still a snarky, sartorial, chaotic, quirkily sweet goofball when he’s sober.  He’s still Klaus.  

Things I do to get in the headspace:

--Listen to playlists that I make for the character or mood. Music is crucial.  --Watch videos of Robert Sheehan talking. Doesn’t have to be as Klaus, but sometimes is.  If you can’t hear the character in the dialogue (not only word choose but little mannerisms and speech patterns), rewrite it. Don’t settle until you can hear the actor’s voice.   --Scream to my friends on Discord about how much I love specific elements of the character, to get psyched up. I’m so sorry, @apocalypsejumped, you are the main person I do this to with Klaus, lmfao.  

--Never EVER look at my follower count, because it’s gonna either depress or intimidate me. 

--Look at pictures of the character. I’m incredibly visual. Just looking at my own screenshots makes me want to dissect him more. 

For advice? Oh lordy!   Uhhhh..... 

Write a lot. Practice a lot. I have a PhD and have written book manuscripts exceeding 600 pages, but you don’t have to go that far, lmao. That drabble in your head at 3 am? Get up and write it down. That passing bit of funny dialogue you think your muse would say? Write it down. I used to carry around a physical journal. Now I use my laptop. 

Write fast and only edit minimally because this is for fun, avocational, and you don’t want to spoil it with too much plotting and refinement.

Drop threads that aren’t working for you. Again, this is not a job, and when it feels like one, scale back.

Resist the urge to over-format.  If your posts cease to be easily legible, the aesthetic will only impede the flow of your prose.   It’s okay to vary your writing voice character by character. My syntax, vocab/word choice, sentence length and structure, vary from one muse to the other, bc the standard rp pov is third person singular, present-tense, meaning your muse is narrating it all from their specific pov.  Klaus and say, a very serious, formal character, would not have the same internal monologue, or even exposition. 

Beware of writing partners who are passive aggressive or possessive, who get jealous of your writing with others, and guilt you for spending your time elsewhere than catering to their needs.  I spent eight years in one of these writing partnerships and only escaped last March, and I am still recovering emotionally. Writing partners can absolutely be abusive, so make sure to enforce healthy boundaries and when they are violated repeatedly, run.

Pick a blog theme that is clearly organized and accessible. 

Don’t pick “main” or heaven forbid “exclusive” writing partners until you have experimented with your chemistry with a number of “versions” of their character (especially canons).  Take your time and see who you gel with. Sometimes you can have a great friendship with someone and your writing together still doesn’t click. It all depends on chemistry.  

Pick a small group of like minded friends and write with them. Do not worry about “exposure” or “popularity,” they are over rated.  Fandoms are genuinely crazy.  Just sit in your sandbox with your trusted buddies. <3 

Anyone else reading this, chime in with some writing advice for nonnie! <3 They’re an experienced writer but new to rp! 

[drowninginfelines]

that video with the bi dude got me thinkin about something ive been trying not to for a while now

so like. im gay. i identify as gay, or queer. thats it. those are the only two words i ever use as self identifiers 

but i think that like, if we go by the letter of the law, dictionary definition......i would technically be bi/pan. now i know what youre thinking. “well youve said youre attracted to fictional dudes and that doesnt really count!” and yes i have said this many many times and yes i am very attracted to many fictional dudes and yes i do not “count” it. but. and like for some reason this feels weird and bad to admit. but if im being very honest? i am still VERY occasionally attracted to irl dudes. it feels weird to say that because any time theres a dude im attracted to i try to leap through all these mental hoops as to why im NOT attracted to him. but at the end of the day sometimes ill see a guy and maybe think nasty stuff. like for instance a few weeks ago i came across this cute mario kart youtuber and have watched like probably 200 of his videos just cause hes so charming and has such a lovely personality. and yeah. id let him go in raw

its especially weird for me specifically as a nonbinary person, specifically someone whos agender and just does not have any kind of gender, because normally its like “haha im nb so its gay no matter what” but like, i have a decent amount of self awareness. i am very aware of how i look and how i present, being an afab person. and aint nobody gonna call someone as feminine looking as me being attracted to a dude gay in any universe

i would like to reiterate though, that like me being attracted to a dude is very rare, so rare in fact that every time i find that happening, said attraction tends to stick in my mind because of how rarely it happens. so i guess that if youre going by the dictionary definition, i guess technically i would be considered bi

that said im not going to stop identifying as gay because im still vastly more attracted to women and femme people, and i could never in a million years see myself in any kind of relationship with a dude, whereas im at the weird age where i simultaneously feel too young for it but also very badly want to get married(to a hot gamer girl that likes all the same ships i do, of course. i have nothing but the highest standards). but like also if there was a guy that i was attracted to i almost definitely would let him dick me down.(but id let anyone i was attracted to dick me down cause frankly im an extremely sexual person)

but yeah just some thoughts and stuff. i feel weird now

[starmin-marmin]

do you think the church will ever change its opinion on same sex marriage? I really hope it will - I love a lot of the things it stands for but the part of the law of chastity saying you can’t be in a homosexual relationship really bothers me

***A QUICK NOTE*** This ask was particularly difficult to answer. I have tried to respond as thoughtfully and sensitively as possible, but please know before reading further that I am in no way entitled to receive revelation for anyone besides myself, and I could very well be wrong. Please keep this in mind before lashing out at me or anyone else.

Hey, Anon ❤️ I’m so sorry this has taken me literal months to respond to. I have made it a constant topic of prayer and fasting, and eventually took it to the temple. This is a difficult question for every member of the Church to consider for at least one reason or another, and I wanted to be sure I treated it with the attention and gravity it demands.

Before we proceed, I have to acknowledge my own privilege. I am a cisgender bisexual woman who is happily married to a wonderful man in the temple. I have been able to pass as straight for a long time with fairly minimal effort, and therefore do not have to face the same kind of turmoil as others who are “more” homosexual or whose gender identity is different than their birth sex. I am not unaware of how relatively easy I’ve had it. So as I answer this, know that I am trying to articulate the best I can and I’m treading as lightly as possible, because I may not be the best person to respond to this question.

I totally agree with your feelings about the law of chastity. It’s a law that seems very simple at face value, but once you consider how it applies to our homosexual homies, transgender folks, nonbinary pals, aromantic buddies, asexual neighbors, infertile friends, and voluntarily childless comrades, things become much more complicated (a great twitter thread on the disorienting logic of the law of chastity can be found here - and yes, I’m familiar with “The Lord’s ways are not your ways,” but I do think it inspires some thought about the way the law of chastity is taught in the Church).

It seems that some of us can not be expected to “have joy,” (2 Nephi 2:25) while at the same time following all of God’s commandments. Sometimes a person faces the impossible choice between following laws that they truly believe God has given but will make them miserable, or breaking those same commandments in order to feel happy. I don’t have any counsel or guidance for friends who find themselves here, except that your relationship with God is personal, and only you can make these kinds of decisions - involving the law of chastity or other commandments.

Now, to the real question - do I think the Church will ever change its opinion on same-sex marriage?

I don’t know.

I hate giving this answer, but as I’ve fasted and prayed and sat in the temple, I didn’t feel a calm wave of affirmation or the deafening stupor of thought. I have no idea if this will change. To be clear, I know that Elder D. Todd Christofferson (who has a gay brother with whom he is very close and therefore shouldn’t be written off as someone who knows absolutely nothing of the challenges and confusion queer members face) held a press conference with KUTV back in 2015 during which he clarified that members were welcome to support gay marriage on social media. Huffpost paraphrased the article, and this excerpt is from the very end:

“Could there be a time when the LDS Church would change its position on gay marriage?

“The apostle was unequivocal.

“Nope, he said.”

(Read the whole Huffpost article here.)

I know this is devastating for many queer members to hear/read from an apostle of God, and I’m sorry. I’m just sharing what my prayer and studies have led me to. It is my honest hope that more will be taught over the pulpit about where queer children of God fit within Christ’s church, but until then we must cling to the faith we have and strengthen one another. Find comfort in the personal revelation you receive, and continue to look for signs of God’s love.

Thank you for your question, Anon. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

AGAIN – this was a difficult question to respond to. If anyone reading this needs a friend, please message me. If you find yourself in an especially dark place, you would probably benefit more from talking to a trained professional. Please use any of the resources listed on the PFLAG website.

[your-dietician]

Megan Fox celebrates 'putting the B in #LGBTQIA for over two decades'

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/entertainment/megan-fox-celebrates-putting-the-b-in-lgbtqia-for-over-two-decades/

Megan Fox celebrates 'putting the B in #LGBTQIA for over two decades'

Happy Pride Month, she’s, gays and they’s.

It’s the queerest time of the year – yes, the whole month of June – when the LGBTQ community comes together to celebrate being out and proud. Pride started as a protest outside the Stonewall Inn in 1969 in New York, and the community wouldn’t be as outspoken as it is today without the work of Black and Latinx transgender women.

The coronavirus pandemic thwarted traditional Pride parades and other debauchery last year. With the country reopening again, members of the LGBTQ community can more readily gather safely this time around.

But how are LGBTQ celebrities partaking in Pride Month this year, and what does it mean to them? We asked some – and are monitoring many others’ social media accounts throughout June – to tell us their thoughts.

Interesting: Is coming out as a member of the LGBTQ community over? No, but it could be someday.

Megan Fox has been ‘putting the B in #LGBTQIA for over two decades’

Actress Megan Fox celebrated Pride Month with a series of selfies that included a rainbow French manicure.

“Putting the B in #LGBTQIA for over two decades,” Fox, 35, captioned the photos June 26 on Instagram with two rainbow emojis and a Pride hashtag.

She also promoted two charities in the caption: Move On, an organization that refers to itself as “a force for social justice and political progress,” and Into Action, “a movement of designers, illustrators, animators and artists building cultural momentum around civic engagement and the issues affecting our country and world.”

More: Machine Gun Kelly, Megan Fox pack on the PDA at Billboard Music Awards: Their relationship timeline

Former ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ star Laganja Estranja comes out as trans

Drag queen and choreographer Laganja Estranja, who appeared in the 2014 season of reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” announced she is “so proud to identify as trans” in an Instagram post for Pride Month.

Story continues

“I feel so empowered that I don’t have to hide in the shadows as I make this journey,” she wrote in a June 15 post, thanking “all the trans brothers and sisters that came before me who fought so that my coming out could be joyous!”

Estranja’s given name off-stage is Jay Jackson, which she told Entertainment Weekly she still plans to go by with those close to her.

“I am so proud to identify as TRANS and to be living my truth. Happy PRIDE, you are beautiful as you are.”

Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff march in Pride parade

Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff wore Pride T-shirts and joined marchers for the Capital Pride Parade on June 12 in Washington, DC.

Harris’ shirt read “Love is love” and Emhoff’s showed a series of text reading “Love first” in a variety of colors.

The vice president stopped and talked to the crowd, according to pool reports.

“We still have so much to do. We celebrate all the accomplishments,” she said. “Finally marriage is the law of the land. We need to make sure that our transgender community are all protected.”

Harris shared a similar message on Instagram the next day where she also recalled the honor of officiating the wedding of Kris Perry and Sandy Steir, whose court case paved the way for marriage equality in California. She noted a need to expand protections for the LGBTQ community in housing, employment and education.

“I want you to know we see you, we hear you and the president and I will not rest until everyone has equal protection under the law,” she said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff join marchers for the Capital Pride Parade on June 12, 2021 in Washington, DC.

JoJo Siwa celebrates first Pride, 5-month anniversary with girlfriend

JoJo Siwa is celebrating her “first Pride” this month, which also coincides with her and her girlfriend’s five-month anniversary.

“Happy pride month!” Siwa, 18, captioned a June 4 Instagram post with a rainbow emoji. “It’s time to celebrate being who you are and LOVING who YOU wanna LOVE!!❤️”

In the post, Siwa and girlfriend Kylie Prew are shown beaming and embracing while wearing rainbow getups in front of a huge “PRIDE” display. The internet star, who started out on “Dance Moms” in the mid-2010s, came out in January as a member of the LGBTQ community, later sharing she identified as queer and pansexual. For the couple’s one-month anniversary in February, she divulged in a sweet post that she was “the happiest I have ever been.”

“It really has been the best 5 months of my life truly being exactly who I am and finding love has been the best part of it all,” Siwa added in her new post. “I love this human so much. I’m so happy❤️”

‘You’re a shining example’: Elton John praises JoJo Siwa at ‘Can’t Cancel Pride’ event

Miley Cyrus seeks to put a stop to homophobia

Miley Cyrus’s message for Pride was blunt: “STOP homophobia whenever and wherever you see it,” the singer wrote on Instagram alongside photos of herself next to a stop sign. She tagged her Happy Hippie Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources to LGBTQ youth, homeless citizens and other vulnerable communities.

The former Disney star spoke about being pansexual and gender-fluid in Variety’s 2016 Power of Women L.A. issue and said she discovered her identity through through the LGBTQ center in L.A.

“I saw one human in particular who didn’t identify as male or female,” she said. “Looking at them, they were both: beautiful and sexy and tough but vulnerable and feminine but masculine. And I related to that person more than I related to anyone in my life. Even though I may seem very different, people may not see me as neutral as I feel. But I feel very neutral.”

Alexandra Shipp says it’s ‘never too late to be you’

“X-Men: Apocalypse” star Alexandra Shipp took to Instagram on June 3 to share “regrets” for not coming out as a member of the LGBTQ community earlier and to encourage fans to be themselves.

“I didn’t come out until I was 28. Though I don’t believe in regrets, this would definitely be #1 for myself. I denied denied denied,” Shipp wrote. “I struggled with not only my sexuality, but my femininity. I was scared it was too late. I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to get work. I was scared no one would ever love me. Scared. Scared. Scared.”

The 29-year-old added that she is now “happy in ways I don’t think my kid self could imagine.”

“It’s never too late to be you. If I don’t work because of a flawed, racist and homophobic system, then it was never the right thing for me … I’m not scared anymore. I have #pride in who I am and what I’m doing on this planet.”

Janelle Monáe encourages LGBTQ community to ‘shine hard’

Janelle Monáe came out as pansexual during a 2018 Rolling Stone interview and in 2021 she is using social media to spread love.

Pansexuality is attraction to all gender identities, or attracted to people regardless of gender, according to GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis.

Saturday the “Tightrope” singer reposted words from a tweet by LGBTQ writer and activist Alexander Leon.

“Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise (sic) humiliation & prejudice,” Leon wrote. “The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us & which parts we’ve created to protect us.”

She finished the post with a series of emojis including rainbows and spaceships calling herself a “kid for life.”

“For those of us who spent time in the dark and had to build worlds to protect ourselves Shine HARD. I love us,” she wrote.

More: Janelle Monáe comes out as pansexual (and it’s not the same as bisexual)

Former ‘America’s Next Top Model’ contestant Lio Tipton comes out as queer, nonbinary

Lio Tipton who starred in Cycle 11 of “America’s Next Top Model” and played the role of babysitter Jessica in the movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love” reintroduced themself on Instagram Wednesday.

“Hi. My name is Lio. My pronouns are they/them. I am proud to announce I am queer and I identify as non binary,” they wrote.

Tipton’s caption was linked to an illustration featuring a unique robot among other droids depicted to match one of two categories a call to the binary nature of gender.

They finished the post with a rainbow flag and a heart writing: “I hope to give as much love and support back to those who continue to show love and support for the Pride community at large.”

‘High School Musical’ spinoff actor Larry Saperstein comes out as bisexual

Actor Larry Saperstein, who plays Big Red on Disney+ show “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” announced he is bisexual Tuesday on social media.

Saperstein, 23, shared in a TikTok video that he “plays a character with a girlfriend on TV,” but “is bi (in real life).” In the current season, his character, a theater tech crew member-turned-performer, is dating fellow theater cast member Ashlyn (Julia Lester).

“is it really that unexpected tho #pride,” Saperstein added of his announcement in the video caption.

Laverne Cox celebrates intersectional Pride

Laverne Cox, who has made waves in Hollywood as a trans woman, posted on Instagram to celebrate Pride with the theory of intersectionality.

The “Orange is the New Black” star listed names of Black feminists who contributed to the theory of intersectionality which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect.”

“My pride is intersectional. I bring all of me into pride month. I believe true liberation must be intersectional,” Cox wrote.

Under a photo of Cox dressed in a golden leotard, she named 11 key figures of intersectionality and called on her fans to name the rest.

“There are so many names. Who have I left out? List them below. Happy Pride Month,” she wrote.

Tan France wants to ‘champion diversity’ for LGBTQ community

“Queer Eye” style expert Tan France who is expecting his first child with husband Rob, opened Pride Month with an Instagram post of him fashionably wrapped in a rainbow flag with a star-like flower adorned on his head.

In the caption France made it a point to approach Pride Month with love and support.

“Let’s celebrate and champion the diversity of our community,” France wrote. “Let’s show compassion to those who don’t feel that they can come out yet, and offer them love and support as they work through it, knowing there is a supportive community, waiting to welcome them with open arms and hearts.”

Busy Philipps praises her child Birdie for Pride Month

The “Girls5Eva” actress posted a selfie of her and 12-year-old child Birdie, who came out as gay last year and uses them/they pronouns, to celebrate Pride Month.

“Today is the start of PRIDE MONTH! I have so much pride for this kid and everything they are and do,” Philipps wrote.

She shares Birdie with her husband, screenwriter Marc Silverstein, and took to Instagram to brag on Birdie’s ability to give back.

“Birdie decided to start gathering the unopened makeup and hygiene items from me and other influencer types(actors, singers, makeup and hair artists) to donate to the @lalgbtcenter for the queer and trans youth that the Center provides a safe space for,” Philipps wrote. “Well. Thanks to many of my friends, Birdie was able to donate HUNDREDS of items to the center.”

Pride Month: Busy Philipps reveals her 12-year-old child Birdie is gay, ‘prefers they/them’ pronouns

In December 2020, Philipps revealed on an episode her podcast “Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best,” that Birdie was gay and used nonbinary pronouns.

“I want Birdie to be in control of their own narrative and not have to answer to anybody outside of our friends and family if they don’t want to,” Philipps said.

Taylor Swift urges senators to pass the equality act

The “You Need To Calm Down” singer is “proudly” teaming up with GLAAD for its “Summer of Equality” campaign to help get the Equality Act passed.

“Who you love and how you identify shouldn’t put you in danger, leave you vulnerable or hold you back in life,” Swift wrote in a statement posted to Twitter Tuesday. “I proudly join GLAAD in their #summerofequality and add my voice to those who support The Equality Act. Happy Pride Month!”

The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights law to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identification as protected characteristics. Those protections would extend to employment, housing, loan applications, education and other areas.

Swift took a moment to thank her fellow “courageous activists, advocates and allies for their dedication to fighting against discrimination and hatred.”

She continued: “As always, today I am sending my respect and love to those bravely living out their truth, even when the world we live in still makes that so hard to do.”

It’s ‘so upsetting’: Taylor Swift calls out 2020 census for ‘brutal’ transgender erasure

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis thanked Swift for her advocacy and said the goal of their “Summer of Equality” campaign is to “get every senator to vote yes.”

The bill passed the U.S. House 224-206 in February, with all Democrats but just three Republicans supporting it. Its fate in the closely divided Senate is uncertain. The House also passed the bill in the last Congress, but it didn’t advance to the Senate.

Niecy Nash: ‘Love should be at the forefront’

Niecy Nash and wife Jessica Betts got married in August – when virtually no one even knew Nash was queer.

“I am proud of who I am,” she says. “I am proud of my relationship. I’m proud of our marriage. I am just proud to be a Black woman who (lives) life on her own terms and does it out loud.”

How’s she digging the newlywed life? “It’s treating me great,” she says. “I’m married to one of the most beautiful souls.” A typical weekend for the pair involves good food, swimming and relaxing in the hot tub, she says.

Surprise! Niecy Nash reveals wedding to singer Jessica Betts and shares photo with fans

Niecy Nash hosts this year’s GLAAD Media Awards.

Nash didn’t know what to expect once she revealed her truth to the world, “but my close friends and family were extremely supportive and so that was the most important part for me,” she says.

She’s been vocal about how she didn’t come out – she “never hid anything” – but rather came into herself.

“I feel like you only really need courage in the face of fear,” she says. “And I don’t know if I was afraid in as much as I was just cautious, because I did not know how we were going to be received in the world.”

Plans for her first Pride Month aren’t set in stone yet, but she encourages people to lead with love.

“The world needs so much love right now because we’ve come through a really tough year and there’s so many things happening in the world that bring stress and chaos,” she says. “Love should be at the forefront of any conversation that anybody is having.”

In case you missed: Niecy Nash says marrying Jessica Betts wasn’t a ‘coming out,’ but a ‘going into myself’

Candis Cayne reflects on first Pride, need to band together for trans community

Actress Candis Cayne acknowledged that Pride has changed over the years – especially since she came out (Cayne came out twice, but as transgender in 1995).

“When I first came out, Pride Month was about fighting for our rights. It was about marching, it was about telling the world that we were OK with who we were, and we were valued people in the community. And luckily, more and more, it’s been accepted,” she says. That said, there’s still a ways to go.

Her first Pride was in New York City, where she saw a sea of people on Fifth Avenue.

“I remember just vividly thinking, ‘There’s more of us out there than I thought,’ ” she says. She’s done New York Pride for about 20 years, including performing on floats, and she recalled dressing as Wonder Woman and jumping off a truck and pretending to push it forward and backward – a magical, quintessential Pride moment.

‘I get goosebumps’: Laverne Cox on Netflix transgender history doc, landmark Supreme Court decision

She doesn’t have plans just yet for Pride – she is vaccinated and encourages others to do the same – but “might just have a get together and celebrate Pride in a more intimate way this year.”

She encourages the LGBTQ community to come together and support the transgender community amid ongoing legal battles and violence.

“Seeing how our community’s being affected right now, with all the legislation, how trans women of color are being murdered at an alarming rate, I think that’s something that we really need to focus on as a community and band together,” she says.

‘From Disclosure’ to ‘Pose’: What movies, shows to watch on Trans Day of Visibility

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actor Jake Borelli talks growing in his queerness

“Grey’s Anatomy” star Jake Borelli viewed Pride Month as a celebration when he was younger. But after publicly coming out in 2018 and spending more time in queer spaces with a variety of queer people, he had time to reflect on what Pride is really about.

“As I’ve grown in my queerness, and my relationship to my own queerness, I know wholeheartedly that it’s a riot, and it is a protest,” the actor, who plays Dr. Levi Schmitt, says. “At this point in my queerness, I feel like I can’t allow myself to stand anymore for the negative way society has made me feel about my queerness and Pride and Pride Month, and Pride gatherings.”

The absence of physical queer spaces during the pandemic forced him to think even deeper.

Did you see? How Lil Nas X, JoJo Siwa and Zaya Wade are teaching kids to be more inclusive

“That caused me to start thinking a lot more introspectively about what it means to be queer and what growing up as a gay person surrounded by straight people really actually did to my psyche in the long term, and I’ve found myself having to re-parent myself right now as as a queer man, re-parenting my younger queer self,” he says.

He’s been to a host of different Pride celebrations in his life, from Los Angeles and New York to his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

“It was such an incredible experience to go back to my hometown where I was fully closeted, and didn’t feel like I could be my full self and to see that there was an entire group of people who were pushing forward in Columbus for the queer community and had been forever,” he says.

His advice for queer people going on similar journeys as himself?

“Be patient with yourself and everyone who’s around you,” he says with a laugh. “I have to remind myself that every day.”

Leyna Bloom talks Pride Month, how she celebrates ‘every single day’

“Port Authority” star Leyna Bloom recently opened up to USA TODAY in a Q&A about how she celebrates Pride Month daily.

Leyna Bloom stars as Wye in the drama “Port Authority.”

“Pride is not just this time when we can explore things that are in us that we’re raised to suppress and now we’re taught to express it in the sun and in the streets and the world just for one month,” Bloom says. “It’s something that I have to do every single day of my life. I have to wake up and be proud that I’m alive and (ask) ‘Why am I here? And what am I doing here, and am I going to be able to help people?’

“Through all the most traumatic experiences in my life and in the world, seeds are being planted everywhere I go. And this summer 2021, everything is blooming at the same time: Sports Illustrated, movies, TV shows. It is really a moment to be Black, be queer, be trans, be Asian, so I’m just honestly going to celebrate every single day that I’m allowed to be alive to have those moments. So I’m really excited to see what else I can do and how we can elevate our community to unite.”

Contributing: Anika Reed and Cydney Henderson, USA TODAY; The Associated Press

For more on that interview: ‘Port Authority’ star Leyna Bloom on trans love story, how she celebrates Pride Month daily

‘We’re not there yet’: LGBTQ representation dips on broadcast TV, GLAAD study reveals

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pride 2021: Megan Fox, JoJo Siwa, more stars celebrate month

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